“When you’re writing, it’s rather like going on a very long walk.”

I doubt I would have written a line, unless some minor tragedy had sort of twisted my mind out of the normal rut.

When you grow up and have children of your own, do please remember something important: a stodgy parent is no fun at all. What a child wants and deserves is a parent who is sparky.

The snozberries taste like snozberries!

Though my father was Norwegian, he always wrote his diaries in perfect English.

A little magic can take you a long way.

When I first thought about writing the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I never originally meant to have children in it at all!

There is no place I know that compares to pure imagination.

We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it.

Sex is like nose picking. It’s fine as long as you practice it yourself, but it’s disgusting watching someone else doing it.

If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.

I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it’s impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling twinkly yourself.

There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours you haven’t started wondering about yet.

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.

You should never, never doubt something that no one is sure of.

Someone who does not run toward the allure of love walks a road where nothing lives.

Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.

Those who are unaware they are walking in darkness will never seek the light.

If the Good Lord intended for us to walk, he wouldn’t have invented rollar skates.

The worst mistake you can make is walking away from the person who actually stood there and waited for you.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.

The road you can talk about is not the road you can walk on.